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Wednesday, July 6, 2011

A Crossville, TN (US) minister named Horace Burgess owns the largest tree house in the world. It rises 97 feet into the sky, the support provided by a live, 80-foot-tall white oak 12 feet in diameter at its base. Six other trees brace the tower-like fortress. It has some 80+ rooms and dozens of porches, overlooks, nooks and stairways. Built from scrap wood, the site stands in a rural area, but is attracting people from all over the country.

As he tells the story, in 1993, Horace Burgess was praying when god told him,If you build a tree house, I will see that you never run out of material. A self-taught carpenter and landscape architect, he has worked almost constantly on the structure since then and he's not finished yet. For fourteen years, Minister Burgess has been adding to the tree house using recycled pieces of lumber from garages, storage sheds and barns.

The tree house has 10 floors, averaging nine to 11 feet in height and measures between 8,000 to 10,000 square feet. It is topped by a chime tower weighing 5,700 pounds equipped with 10 oxygen acetylene bottles repurposed as bells.

A homemade sign reads: "Welcome friends." Approximately 400 to 500 folks visit weekly, most of them from out of state and most of them by word of mouth.

Horace Burgess's tree house is soon going to enter the Guinness book of records, but before that Burgess will have to provide measurements of every inch of the tree house, a daunting task that he'll likely accomplish with the assistance of his friends who have volunteered many hours on the project. Burgess has also vowed to build additions to the ramshackle structure if he is ever in danger of losing that title.

Investigators plan to pry open the final vault hidden deep under the centuries-old Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple as police guarded round the clock the shrine where billions of dollars worth of treasure has been discovered. Over the last week a seven-member team of investigators has broken into five of the six secret subterranean vaults piled high with jewels that have lain untouched for hundreds of years.

Padmanabhaswamy Kshetram : The temple that houses a sleeping idol of Lord Vishnu is the richest temple in the world. Treasure worth Rs 100,000 crore was recently found in secret chambers on temple land. Golden crowns, 17 kg of gold coins, 18 ft long golden necklace weighing 2.5 kg, gold ropes, sack full of diamonds, thousands of pieces of antique jewellery, and golden vessels were some of the treasures unearthed during the weekend.

Tirumala Tirupathi Venkateshwara : With an annual income of Rs 650 crore, Tirupathi Balaji is the second richest deity in India. The temple has over 3000 kgs of gold deposited in different banks and Rs 1000 crore in fixed deposits. The temple trust receives around Rs 300 crore, 350 kg of gold and 500 kg of silver as donations every year.

Mata Vaishno Devi: The second most visited temple in the country after Tirupathi Balaji, Vaishno Devi has an annual income of Rs 500 crore. Managed by the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, popularly called the Shrine Board, the temple has a daily income of Rs 40 crore.

Siddhivinayak Mandir: Situated in the heart of Mumbai, the second richest temple in the state of Maharastra has an annual income of Rs 46 crore and has Rs 125 crore in fixed deposits. The temple known for its famous devotees receives around Rs 10-15 crore as donations every year. As per the financial records of Shree Siddhivinayak Ganapati Temple Trust, the assets of the temple stood at approximately 140 crore for the year ended March 2009.

Guruvayur Temple: Run by a nine-member committee under the Kerala Dewaswom Board, the most famous Lord Krishna temple in South India makes Rs 2.5 crore annually and has approximately Rs 125 crore in fixed deposits. The most sought after puja at the temple, the Udayaasthamana Puja, has a wait list till 2049! The dawn to dusk puja costs Rs 50,000.

The Franklin Institute located in Philadelphia invites visitors to attend an exhibition called The Mummies of the World. This is the mummy of a child from Peru who died 6500 years ago at the age of 8-10 months due to a heart disease. It is one of the oldest mummies in the world and is over 3000 years elder than the mummy of Tutu Pharaoh.

Every exhibit here is unique. You can see the remains of a dog buried in the swamps of Germany 500 years ago or bones of a child who lived in Peru 6420 years ago. The Peruvian mummy lived in the 13 century AD.

The exhibits were prepared in collaboration with experts from 15 leading European institutions and taken to many large cities of the USA. The mummy of an ancient Egyptian.

The 10-year-old girl is looking at the the mummy of an adult person found in the caves of Chile.

The woman with children were found in the South America.

The mummy of Michael Orlovits born in Hungary in 1765. The mummies of his family members were found during the reconstruction of a Dominican church. Cold and dry air of that place as well as the pine oil allowed the mummies to be preserved till our days.

The investigations held showed that Veronica Orlovits and her husband suffered from severe tuberculosis. Besides, some other traumas and injuries were found on their bodies.

Another member of the family, Johannes Orlovits.

Computer tomography and other scientific methods help in mummy studying. Using them, we can find out how people lived and died. The method is non-invasive and gives three-dimensional image of a mummy enabling to preserve it for future generations.

Scanning results of the Orlovits mummy obtained in a Californian medical center.

Scan session of the Orlovits mummy.

The mummy of the pre-Columbian era found on the territory of a desert in Chile.

A howler monkey mummy from the South Africa.

The Egyptian lived 400 years B.C.E.

As the day of the exhibition approaches, the employees of the Californian scientific center are sealing the glass cube containing a sarcophagus and Egyptian mummy.

For a beautiful and youthful body, you need to take a care of it, and for that, one needs to get to the roots of nature as natural is always safer and healthier. Massaging is of course one of the ways to obtain a younger looking skin but what to use for a massage counts. Here, we would like to share the top 5 best massage oils that are a must and the most popular ones in the spas. Do, take a look.

Top 5 Best Massage Oils -

1. Sunflower Oil - The non-greasy oil is light for skin and has essential fatty acids like linoleic acid, palmitic acid and stearic acid that help in the healthy nourishment of the skin. All the natural oils washed away by the usage of harsh soaps can be retained through the oil. It is even better a massage oil if mixed with little turmeric or vitamin E oil.

2. Sesame Oil - Sesame oil is highly used in Ayurveda for its rich medicinal properties. It is said that self massaging with sesame everyday is good for muscles as it improves blood circulation in the body. The process of massaging self in called Abhyanga in Ayurveda. Sesame oil is a good toner too.

3. Coconut Oil - Fractionated coconut oil is said to be a one of the best in the top 5 massage oils as it is easily available. The aromatic oil is light, non-oily and converts all the long-chain glycerides to medium-chain triglycerides. The oil is non pricey and has a long shelf life.

4. Almond Oil - Sweet almond oil is the most popular of the massage oils. The pale yellow oil is absorbed very quickly when applied on body and is easy to glide over skin. Even almond oil can be combined with vitamin E for body massage.

5. Jojoba Oil - Jojoba oil is extracted from its seed and is best massage oil for people suffering from back problems. The oil has many anti bacterial properties that can cure many skin allergies and ailments. The waxy oil (containing esters) helps in retaining the sebum of the skin.